Inevitably, whenever a new game comes out, people start to figure out ways to beat it faster and faster. And if you do this in the recently released comedic shooter High On Life, the game will react positively, cheering you on and hoping you set a world record in the process.
Released last month, High On Life is the latest game from Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland and his studio Squanch Games. The first-person shooter includes thousands of jokes and tons of characters who will often break the fourth wall as you explore the various worlds or fight enemies using its odd talking weapons. For example, if you sprint around too much, the guns will point out how you aren’t appreciating all the work that went into the level. And if you try to shoot random NPCs, the guns will chastise you and refuse to do so. It turns out that if you do some speedrunning, High On Life will react accordingly, too.
As spotted by PCGamesN, players have discovered that if you skip around a platforming section in the latter half of the game, your suit’s AI will notice you are speedrunning and comment on it. Normally, to reach the objective you have to take a much longer route which has you fighting baddies, jumping across rooftops, and using a jetpack. If you skip all that with some skilled jumps and climbing, your suit’s AI is fine with it—in fact, it likes that you are speedrunning the game. It also wishes you good luck, and hopes you set a world record.
If you look around YouTube, you can find actual speedruns of High On Life where players use this faster route to complete the mission—and each time they do the dialogue plays. Though funnily enough, most speedrunners are moving so fast through this part that they trigger the next bit of dialogue before the cute speedrunning joke is even finished.
High On Life is filled with this kind of fourth-wall-breaking shenanigans. At one point the game lets you wait around for a full hour complete with extra dialogue and videos while you wait. It’s this type of humor and content that seems to have helped make High On Life popular, with it being one of the biggest hits in the history of Xbox Game Pass, even surpassing bigger games like Minecraft, Halo, and Forza last month. Just be careful you don’t get trapped in Space Applebee’s.
